Autonomous

Autonomous, Annalee Newitz. Structurally a thriller (people! on the trail of other people!) but carries a lot of its oomph in its worldbuilding. I found the start a little abrupt but then I ended up liking this a *lot*. The slow accumulation of world details and history, the Canadian setting (when was the last time you read anything set in the Northwest Territories or Saskatchewan), the complexity of the characters - they're all interesting, many of them quite likeable, and yet most of them do at least one awful thing, some of them multiple awful things. There's some very obvious critique of capitalism going on (drug Robin Hoods vs big pharma) and then there's a really brilliant somewhat meta move about robots and sci fi and metaphors and... yeah. Anyways, it's smart and complicated and I don't have a good comparison at the tip of my tongue but let's say if you like Vernor Vinge or Madeline Ashby, that's enough of a ballpark. Oh, and also some bonus genderfuckery! (Homophobic botfucker: are you REALLY a WOMAN? Large, vaguely birdlike, cheerfully agender/genderfluid military bot who's into him: suuuure, definitely. And then he's so good about her pronouns! for the dumbest possible reason!)